Article: Squeeze it in

High speed, eight channel test and measurement through the USB port is possible with a breakthrough device from ADLINK. Martin Krebs explains.

ADLINK has been renowned for its ingenious hardware for a long time, but we're very impressed with a new device which enables multiple instrumentation signals to be passed through to PC-based test and measurement software through the USB port. Why is the USBDAQ-9100-MS, so clever? The answer is the appearance on the data sheet of a sampling rate of up to 500kS/sec.

But that's not all. The unit also samples up to four channels simultaneously, opening up some completely new possibilities for those wanting to use USB. In total, the compact USBDAQ-9100-MS has eight differential analogue input channels with 8 programmable ranges, four of which can be simultaneously sampled. In addition, two 12-bit analogue output channels, 16 isolated digital I/O and two timer/counter channels are available. The analogue output section also features an arbitrary waveform generator.

Other specifications of interest in this versatile unit include 1500V DC isolation on the digital I/O channels.

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is built into all new PCs. In Test and Measurement World magazine last year, a reader survey showed that use of the current favourite bus systems, RS-232 and IEEE 488, is about to plummet in favour of USB, Ethernet, and PCI. The magazine concluded: “The popularity of USB should grow during the next few years”. That, we reckon, is an understatement.

The USBDAQ-9100-MS allows direct connection of sensors for displacement, pressure and flow, and measurement of voltage, frequency, pulse counts, duty cycle and digital I/O. Calibration is digital, so no potentiometers or adjustments are needed to get the system up and running - it really is a plug-in-and-go solution. Compatible Windows-based software such as Dasylab can be provided by the Adept Scientific data acquisition team.